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Description

Individual Development and Social Change: Explanatory Analysis represents a convergence of three lines of emphasis now visible in developmental research and theory building. The three are (1) the life course as a focus for the study of development and social change, and their interrelationships; (2) the life-span orientation to the study of individual development, with its acknowledgment of the salience of contextual features for understanding development; and (3) the growth of methodological innovations that provide more appropriate and powerful ways of exploiting data gathered to describe and explain developmental change processes.
The book opens with a study on how major cultural change originates and unfolds over time. This is followed by separate chapters on the use of sequential designs for explanatory analyses; evolutionary aspects of social and individual development; the concepts of the theory of causal and weak causal regressive dependence; and the concepts of age, period, and cohort from the perspective of developmental psychology. Subsequent chapters examine development and aging as lifelong processes of historical populations; the methodological integration of natural and cultural science perspectives in developmental psychology; and application of the multifaceted methodology to the mutuality of constraint between sociocultural group and individual dynamics.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Preface
1. Evolution and Innovation in Sociocultural Systems: A Punctuated Equilibria Model
I. Introduction
II. The Contributions and Limitations of a Darwinian Approach to Culture Change
III. Paradigm Shift: The Punctuated Equilibria Model
IV. A New Paradigm of Sociocultural Innovation
V. Examples of Punctuated Equilibria in Techno-economic Change
VI. Conclusion
References
2. Sequential Strategies as Quasi-experimental Designs: Possibilities and Limitations in Explanatory Analysis
I. Introduction
II. Models of Individual Development and Social Change in the Context of Sequential Strategies
III. Empirical Applications of Sequential Strategies
IV. Conclusions
References
3. Evolutionary Aspects of Social and Individual Development: Comments and Illustrations from the World System Perspective
I. The Context of Development and the Development of Context
II. Toward Worldwide Institutionalized Individualism: The Trend at the State Level
III. The Institutionalization of Individualism at the World System Level
IV. Conclusions
References
4. Causal Regressive Dependencies: An Introduction
I. Introduction
II. Introductory Examples
III. Causal and Weak Causal Regressive Dependence
IV. Illustrative Applications
V. Conclusion
Appendix
References
5. Structure Identification Using Nonparametric Models
I. Structures
II. Relations in Structures: A Formal Approach
III. On the Detection of Structures
IV. Application to the Study of Development and Change
V. Summary
References
6. Individual and Context in Developmental Psychology: Conceptual and Theoretical Issues
I. Introduction
II. Key Questions of Human Development
III. The Concepts of Time and Timing in the Contextual Perspective
IV. Limits and Problems of a Contextual Perspective
V. Conclusions
References
7. Age, Period, and Cohort Analysis and the Study of Individual Development and Social Change
I. Introduction
II. Historical Perspectives
III. Age, Period, and Cohort Effects
IV. Interpretation of Effects
V. A Substantive Illustration of Concepts
VI. Conclusion
References
8. Individual Development and Aging as a Population Process
I. Introduction
II. Statement of the Thesis
III. Evolution, Development, and Aging: A Synergistic Relationship in Human Society
IV. Individual Development: A Critique of Personological Thinking
V. A Conceptual Schema of Development as a Population Process
VI. Developmental Change Functions in Historical Populations
VII. Strategies for Analyzing Human Development as a Population Process
VIII. Conclusion
References
9. Individual Development in Social Action Contexts: Problems of Explanation
I. Introduction
II. Laws and Quasi Laws, Plasticity and Universality of Development
III. Structural Implications and "Pseudoempirical" Research in Developmental Psychology
IV. Developmental Psychology as a Natural and Cultural Science: Problems of Integration
V. Conclusion
References
10. Multifaceted Systems Modeling: Structure and Behavior at a Multiplicity of Levels
I. Introduction
II. A Brief Review of Multifaceted Systems Modeling
III. Multifaceted Model Framework for Issues in Mutuality of Constraint
IV. Conclusions
References
11. Analysis of Qualitative Data in Developmental Psychology
I. In Search of Appropriate Methods within the Framework of Qualitative Developmental Theories and Models
II. Illustrations from Different Fields of Developmental Psychology
III. Statistical Methodology
References
12. The Generalized Group Effect Model
I. Introduction
II. Hierarchically Nested Design
III. Generations Design
IV. Group Polarization
V. Conclusion
References
Author Index
Subject Index